Measures to Trackle Energy Crisis in India

Development in each sector of the economy leads to the demand for energy faster than the supply of energy. This demand supply gap indicates the growing energy crisis.

In the context of India’s economic development, energy crisis has taken the following forms:

(a) Oil Shortage:

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Reserves of mineral oil in India is only 0.3% of world’s known oil reserves. Oil shortage adversely effect the transport sector in the economy. Again rising oil prices has led to rising general prices in India.

A severe shortage exists in generation and distribution of electric power in India. Power shortage affects industrial as well as agricultural production seriously.

Measure to Trackle to Energy Crisis in India:

Following measures are taken to increase the supply of energy on the one hand and control demand on the other.

(1) Making efforts to discover and develop the sources of oil in the country.

(2) Measures taken to improve the fuel efficiency in the transport and in other industrial sectors for the conservation of the energy.

(3) Steps have been taken to check the consumption of Petroleum, Oil and Lubricant (POL) within manageable limit.

(4) Fuel policy committee recommended a phased programme of substitution of oil by coal in a number of industries.

(5) Efforts have been given on the development and utilization of new and renewable sources of energy. A variety of new technologies such as improved chullahs, bio-gas plants, solar voltaic system, wind mills, and small hydro- plants have been developed.

(6) Government is encouraging private sector investment in power generating schemes.

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(7) Many public sector undertakings and other organisations have been established to improve the energy situation in India.

(8) To achieve the mission of ‘power for all’ by 2012, development of Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) has been identified as a major thrust area. UMPPs are very large projects of about 4000 mw, each requiring an investment of approximately Rs 150-200 billion.